


10 Songs Challenge

by wanderamaranth



Category: Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Genre: 10 Song Challenge, Angst, Assorted Genres, Masturbation, Mental Health Issues, Multiple Pairings, Other, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 01:34:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderamaranth/pseuds/wanderamaranth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Playlist shuffle challenge; 10 songs, 10 drabbles written during the span of those songs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	10 Songs Challenge

Florence + The Machine _Rabbit Heart_ 3:52

 

Alice put down the glass bottle, feeling the familiar rush of dizziness overtake her as she shrunk, faster and faster and faster until she was sure she was going to wink out of existence altogether and--!

 

Finally, thankfully, she stopped, when she was nothing more than a pair of miniscule feet and a tiny head propped atop them. She crab-shuffled walked over to the familiar cake, and stuck her tongue out of the small slit her mouth had become. Only a small bit of frosting was able to get past her lips, but it was enough to make her grow a bit larger--large enough to take a proper bite, at any rate. She did so, relieved to feel herself grow towards a proper-small size, rather than that of an almost-not Alice.

 

“Not doing that again.” she muttered, picking up the key. “Certainly not!”

 

***

 

AFI _Darling, I Want to Destroy You_ 3:43

 

The tea splashed down into the cup, hot drops littering the tablecloth underneath it.

 

“You’re back now, and that’s all that matters, really.”

 

He smiled sweetly at the specter of Alice, at her tiny little Alice-feet, her perfectly miniature Alice-face. “Shall I build you a house for your size now, or shall we go to Marmoreal to get you some of that useful Upelkuchen, darling?” he asked, head cocked to the side, listening for words that did not exist in reality’s air.

 

“No, I quite agree. I want you quite to myself, for just a little while longer.” Plucking a book from the stack beside him, ignoring that it was the stack that the miniature Alice was purposively sitting upon (for what’s the use of having a wonderful delusion if you destroy it yourself?) and opened to a random passage. “Shall I read, then?”

 

***

 

The Dead Weather _Die By the Drop_ 3:30

 

The drop of Jabberwocky blood landed on the tip of her tongue, and he watched her cap the vial, despair written across his features. “I’ll be back before you know it.” she assured him.

 

“You won’t remember me.” he asserted, and while his expression was still somber, there was a light of defiance backlighting them.

 

“Of course I will.” she smiled, wanly. “How could I forget?”

 

His eyes flicked up and down her, taking in her armor, the shine of her hair in the patchy sun, the beauty of her cosmetic free face.

 

“Forgive me, Alice.” he said, and then he was grasping her hips, and she was crashing against him, and his head dipped down to hers. He captured her lips, pillaging her mouth, stealing the blood from the inside of her mouth. “But I’m not of the mind to give you the opportunity to.”

 

***

 

AFI _Medicate_ 4:21

 

Mally slid down the balustrade, hatpin waving. “Clear the way, ye pillaging malcontents!” she shrilly cried.

 

A chorus of giggles met this declaration, and her small black eyes swept around, looking for the source of the small voices. “I hear you, children. Best to be coming out now. You don’t want your father to hear of you misbehaving for me, now do you?”

 

Three small forms tumbled out from under the stairway, all knees and elbows and wildly fuzzy hair in varying shades of strawberry blonde.

 

“Aunt Mally, you wouldn’t!” the oldest of the pile groaned, green eyes pleading.

 

Ignoring with practiced restraint the surge of jealousy--at seeing Alice’s features and Tarrant’s melded together in such tangible proof of their devotion!--she instead put on her best ‘scolding’ frown and said, “You can bet I will, Melinda! Now up with you!” The girl giggled, but listened, pulling up her two siblings and scampering away.

 

***

 

Cobra Starship feat. Leighton Meester _Good Girls Go Bad_ 3:17

 

Stayne flicked his hair out of his face, pouting his lips in front of the mirror. A slightly crooked grin graced his features, and he drawled to the Looking Glass, “Who is this powerfully sensual creature?”

 

“None other than Ilosovic Stayne, He Who Maketh the Skirts Lift.” the Looking Glass replied, in a very bored tone. This conversation had happened many times before, and the Glass knew, with a sort of wearied acceptance, that it would happen many times after this as well.

 

“Umm won’t know what to do, poor dear.” he smirked, adjusting his eye patch. “But I will. I shall take great pleasure in instructing her in…the ways of the Court.”

 

“As you are very capable of doing.” the Mirror agreed, hoping the man would be gone soon.

 

***

 

Framing Hanley _You Stupid Girl_ 3:34

 

Tarrant leaned his head back against the pillow, trying vainly to find a cool spot. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, breath a shaky exhale.

 

He wouldn’t, not again! To do such a thing while thinking of his wee little boy and imagining he was straining stretching reaching towards she and not his own--!

 

The argument was lost, as it had been lost every night since her abandonment, and soon his hand was loosening his trousers, was reaching inside, was gripping…

 

“Why did you drink it, Alice?” he asked, a small whine escaping his lips as he tugged harshly. “Why, when we could…we would have--!”

 

As it was every night, there was no answer--just the further sounds of his racing towards a solitary victory, and the crushing loneliness that followed when that goal was reached.

 

***

 

How to Destroy Angels _A Drowning_ 7:04

 

The light streaming in through the carriage window was cheerful, dappling through the leafy trees lining the path towards the Ascot estate. So Alice pulled the screen shut, sinking the interior of the cabin into darkness.

 

She knew she would need to be the strong one, for Hamish. It was a difficult day for him, perhaps more difficult for he than she. Once at the house, it would not be the time for Alice to be selfish, to wallow in her own grief and sense of abandonment. She would need to support Hamish, to sit with him, to hold his hand as he reminisced about a man neither of them would ever see again. Heavens knew his wife would not be willing to do so; that women was so entirely self-involved it wouldn’t surprise Alice if she was not even aware of the elder Ascot’s passing.

 

Alice clenched her jaw, angry at the errant tear that slipped down her cheek. Instead of wiping it away, though, she twisted the handkerchief resting in her lap between her hands and bit her lip, savagely. She wanted this to be impossible, but had not the strength to truly believe it to be so.

 

“We’ve arrived, miss.” the driver informed her, and taking a deep breath to steady herself, Alice replied, “I thank you, sir.” Then she stepped out of the carriage an into the bright daylight, prepared to assist the man who had become like a brother in any way she could during his time of mourning.

 

***

 

John Wesley Harding _Like A Prayer_ 3:35

 

Dirt flew up from her feet as she ran, and she didn’t care. Fleeing was what she was best at, after all. Wickedly good at, if you were to listen to the other residents of Underland. In her haste, her shawl loosened from around her shoulders and the Breeze took it, tangling it upon the high branches of a nearby tree.

 

A whine of frustration left the White Queen’s lips as she considered the shall (which she was very fond of) and the pounding footsteps of her ever-approaching-closer enemy. She shook her head and picked up her skirts again, running once more. Perhaps today would be the day she’d be able to run fast enough that she’d land straight in Yesterday, and be able to prevent such a thing from happening again? No, Luck had never liked her quite that much.

 

***

 

Christina Aguilera _Birds of Prey_ 4:19

 

The Mirror rippled under her fingertips as she brushed it’s surface, and Alice sat back in her seat, slightly stunned.

 

“What on earth--?”

 

Yet she knew, as soon as the words left her lips, that the proper phrase was not What on earth. Rather, ‘What in Underland’ would have been more appropriate. An excited smile curled her lips, and she looked left and right, as if checking for someone to stop her from what she was considering, even though she certainly knew she was by herself. She was in her private chambers, after all.

 

A swipe at the table cleared all of her miscellaneous nonsense to the floor--inks, pens, and papers, a rouge pot (which she had no idea how that had gotten there!), a tea cup--as she clambered up top of the writing desk. She pressed her hand more firmly to the large mirror’s surface, and was delighted when he hand sank in up to the wrist. Her eyes sparkled. “I’m going to keep my promise, Hatter!” she said, and then went fully through.

 

***

 

Elton John _Tiny Dancer_ 6:18

 

The rain pattered against the window, and Alice sighed glumly as she stared out of it. A warm presence at her back alerted her to the presence of another, and she turned, looking up into the belovedly familiar face of her husband.

 

“Why do you sigh, Alice?” he asked, running a work-roughened hand down her arm, humming fussily when he felt how chilled she was.

 

“I was so looking forward to taking tea outdoors today.” she said. “Playing a record, maybe convincing you to dance beside the table…”

 

Brows furrowed, Tarrant asked, “Why can’t we?”

 

Her own forehead wrinkling, Alice gestured to the window and said, “It’s raining, Tarrant.”

 

“Do you think I let a little thing like rain stop me whilst I was waiting for your return?” he rejoined, lips twitching into a smile. He impulsively grasped her hand and drug her out the door, ignoring her shrieks of protest.

 

“I’m going to get soaked through, Hatter!”

 

He put the needle to the player, and a jaunty little jazz tune tinkled out of the cone. “Completely soaked, my dear?” he asked as he trotted back to her side, a naughty gleam in his eye. She slapped him upon the shoulder, but still took his offered hand in her own. He then began to swing her about the yard, thoroughly enjoying the contrast of her warm skin against his and the cool rain beating down upon both of their heads.


End file.
